Historical linguistics in Australia: trees, networks and their implications

2010/11/01 by Claire Bowern · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Language and cultural evolution #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Australian Indigenous Culture and History #Historical linguistics #Linguistics #Phylogenetic tree #Computer science #Biology #Philosophy

paper · pdf · doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0013

openalex publication_date 2010/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the current state of historical linguistics in Australian languages. Australian languages have been important in theoretical debates about the nature of language change and the possibilities for reconstruction and classification in areas of intensive diffusion. Here are summarized the most important outstanding questions for Australian linguistic prehistory; I also present a case study of the Karnic subgroup of Pama-Nyungan, which illustrates the problems for classification in Australian languages and potential approaches using phylogenetic methods.

Citations

• Australian Languages
• Australian Languages
• Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement
• Transmission and diffusion
• The Rise and Fall of Languages
• Australian Languages Reconsidered: A Review of Dixon (2002)
• Reassessing Karnic

Cited by

• Macro-Pama–Nyungan languages [wikipedia]

Related

• The Prehistory and Internal Relationships of Australian Languages
• The riddle of Tasmanian languages
• Teaching & Learning Guide for: Rebuilding Australia’s Linguistic Profile – Recent Developments in Research on Australian Aboriginal Languages
• The Languages of Australia
• Computational Phylogenetics and the Internal Structure of Pama-Nyungan